After the Recital

Review the recital results and evaluate your strengths and weaknesses so that you can improve your practice/recital preparation routines. A few students will be able to play consistently without audible mistakes. Most of the others will make several mistakes every time they play. Some will tend to bang on the piano while others may be too timid. There is a cure for every problem. Those who make mistakes probably have not yet learned to play sufficiently musically and almost always cannot play in their minds. Those who tend to play flawlessly invariably have learned mental play, whether they do it consciously or not.

As noted elsewhere, playing several recitals in succession is the hardest thing to do. But if you must, then you will need to recondition the recital pieces immediately following the recital. Play them with little or no expression, medium speed, then slow. If certain sections or pieces did not come out satisfactorily during the recital, you can work on them, but only in small segments. If you want to work on the expression at full speed, do this also in small segments. Experienced teachers know the difficulty of playing consecutively and will purposely use this to strengthen the students' performance ability by scheduling recitals on consecutive days. However, it is my personal opinion that it is more important to train the student to enjoy performing than to give them too many difficult tasks. The joy of performance should not emphasize "showing off" the technical skills of playing difficult pieces but should instead concentrate on making music.